Holly Black – L i t S t a c k

Gimbling in the Wabe – Sneaking Into Comic Book Fandom by the Side Door

Every Wednesday is notable at my house, because it is the day that new releases hit the shelves of our local comic book store (waves at the guys at Comic Book College on Hennepin Ave). Fairly recently – within the last couple of years – my daughter and I have […]

LitStack Encore Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Holly Black Little, Brown Books Release Date: September 3, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-31621-310-3 In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, here is a slightly updated review of one of our favorite spooky novels. Enjoy! Now THIS is what a vampire tale should be like. […]

Birthdays

On this day, July 23, in 1971, Mohsin Hamid was born in Lahore, Pakistan to a family of Punjabi and Kashmiri descent. He spent some younger years in the US, and returned to attend Princeton where he studied under Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison (the first draft of his novel, Moth Smoke, was penned for a fiction workshop taught by Morrison). Although his career was in management and brand consulting, he always dedicated time to writing. All of his novels, which along with Moth Smoke includes The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and 2017’s Exit West, have been well received and duly honored. Now splitting his time between London and Lahore, today he turns 50.

Birthdays

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.